Why we're on overwatch for XCOM 2 on mobile

A solider stands alone in the wreck on an alien spacecraft.

Her combat fatigues and shotgun feeble anachronisms against the gleaming walls and exotic instruments. Yet she fought here alone, through a swarm of plasma bolts, and she's not done yet.

A being of pure light materialises before her and she swings round the corner, fires twice, and reduces it back into photons.

This is XCOM. This is drama, detail, and deep strategy at its finest and most accessible.

I've been replaying the game over the last couple of weeks, in preparation for the sequel (which releases for PC on February 5th). It's been an eye opening experience.

For starters, I'd forgotten quite how good it is. Quite how instantly addictive. There's so much to think about and co-ordinate, yet there's no barriers to picking it up and finding that it's brilliant. No resistance at all.

Much of this is down to tiny design decisions. Things you might only pick up with a critical eye on a second or subsequent trip through the game.

It's not just the graphics and sound, fine though these are by strategy game standards. It's things like the short pause between firing a shot and seeing if it hit and how much damage it inflicted.

Because the game is difficult, there's an eternity of anticipation packed into those moments. The success or failure of the whole mission could depend on the outcome. Tension runs through the game like a taut cheesewire.

We get these things in XCOM because developer Firaxis had a lot of resources to throw at development. Or at least it had a lot more than your average strategy specialist studio. The result was a critical and commercial smash, which proved turn-based games didn't have to be a niche genre anymore.

High demand

We also got it on mobile. Which is perhaps the one platform where turn-based games weren't a niche genre. The relatively slow pace of play makes it an ideal platform for strategy games of all varieties. And the tactile nature of touchscreen control mimics the feel of a tabletop game, something with which turn-based games have an obvious affinity.

Yet even given the stable of great titles we had at the time, XCOM still wiped the floor with the opposition. It remains a defining influence on those that came after.

It managed all that in spite of the fact that it flaunted conventional wisdom when it came to app pricing. It cost £13.99 / $19.99: an astronomical sum in an ecosystem where free to play games still rule the roost.

Yet it didn't just scrape a profit. 2K has always been close lipped regarding the precise sales numbers of the game but it was effusive in praising the mobile version as a financial success.

Enemy Unknown was among the top ten highest grossing apps in the weeks after initial release. 2K felt it was profitable enough to make it worth porting the expansion too.

This proves an important point. The people who were buying the mobile release were almost certainly people who hadn't played it on PC or console. You're not going to stump up release price to play a title you already own on a different platform.

These earlier adopters were gamers who saw mobile as their primary gaming platform. They were happy to pay top dollar for a top game.

In short, mobile gaming has its own dedicated fanbase, who are willing to spend on quality product. There's a market there. And as we all know only too well, the dearth of big budget games available for mobile has only gotten worse. We could use another demonstration of how powerful premium can be as a bulwark against the deadly creep of free to play.

The choice to focus on PC for XCOM 2 is a sensible one for Firaxis, who are very much specialists in that area. Yet given the success of the original the silence on a possible mobile port is baffling.

In interviews the team has spoken about the possibility of a future console release for the game. But there's not been a peep about it coming to mobile.

There doesn't appear to be any significant barrier to it happening. Nothing we've seen or heard about the game so far suggests it wouldn't work on a touchscreen.

Perhaps more importantly the PC specs required for the game look relatively pedestrian. Nothing a current generation iPad shouldn't be able to handle.

So all the ingredients would seem to be in place for a tasty port to mobile. There's a hungry audience, ready to wave their cash at any chef skilled enough to make it happen. And a real need to stand up to the fast-food chains of the gaming world.

We need this, Firaxis. So, please, commander: make the order.